Negative. There are temporary single-door "platforms" at Berlin, Meriden, and Wallingford. Berlin's is at the south end of the old platform, Meriden's is on the old Brook Street grade crossing, and Wallingford is at the south end of the old station's platform.

Siding for the Salt has been placed back in and looks really great with the new retaining wall that was built for this customer located in the North Meadows North of Hartford. Just in time as winter is just around the corner and salt cars hopefully will be on there way soon. CSO could use the business.

Spotted in Hartford CT yard on new track #four are 17 brand new looking Amtrak Hopper cars in yellow paint and have solar panels on them. They have been there a few days now with no engine in site and I can't tell if they' re loaded or unloaded. To me they look unloaded of any ballast at this time. Not sure how long they will stay graffiti free based on their location in the yard.

Larry wrote:Spotted in Hartford CT yard on new track #four are 17 brand new looking Amtrak Hopper cars in yellow paint and have solar panels on them. They have been there a few days now with no engine in site and I can't tell if they' re loaded or unloaded. To me they look unloaded of any ballast at this time. Not sure how long they will stay graffiti free based on their location in the yard.

They must of had something in them because the new track heading north had ballast dumped yesterday and I saw and heard nothing so I am stumped. The new track had from the Hartford yard north to Barber street a small layer of ballast.

They sort of buried this document in the press release on the fares, but it has additional key information. According to the above the new CTrail service will actually only be running a total of 8 round trips to start out, 5 between New Haven and Hartford and the remaining 3 running the whole line to Springfield. All current Amtrak service will continue and 3 additional Amtrak round trips will be starting in 2018. No details in there on the specifics of the Amtrak routes other than that they will fulfill the additional 3 round trips between New Haven and Springfield promised by the state's NHHS program. Could these end up being New Haven to Greenfield, MA trips? Will be interesting to see what happens.

lordsigma12345 wrote:According to the above the new CTrail service will actually only be running a total of 8 round trips to start out, 5 between New Haven and Hartford and the remaining 3 running the whole line to Springfield. All current Amtrak service will continue and 3 additional Amtrak round trips will be starting in 2018. No details in there on the specifics of the Amtrak routes other than that they will fulfill the additional 3 round trips between New Haven and Springfield promised by the state's NHHS program. Could these end up being New Haven to Greenfield, MA trips? Will be interesting to see what happens.

Could be either/or:

1) Amtrak is laying the groundwork for eventual NHV-Greenfield and NHV-SPG-Boston service by having these 3 additional NHV-SPG round trips in place so that they could have plenty of options to chose from as to which trains go where, if anywhere. Obviously Boston is a ways off, but it won't be that far off into the future with CSX and MassDOT having an agreement in place. Greenfield sounds like a sure thing with everyone up and down the Pioneer Valley calling for increased service in the wake of the impressive ridership numbers. An additional 3 RTs to Greenfield would appear to at least at first satisfy those demands. And if I'm not mistaken the plan was for at least 4 RTs SPG-Boston when the time comes.

2) ConnDOT figured there wouldn't be enough "in service" locomotives in rotation in time for both SLE and when the Hartford Line starts up in May with the GP40-2H and P40 fleets out for rebuild; however many units at a time. Thus, additional Amtrak service will be making up the difference until the refurbished equipment comes back and the double tracking is completed to allow for more service.